An Awfully Big Adventure
by kaleidoscope heart
Summary: Ten year old Rose Tyler closes her eyes on Tuesday night to a world which will never look the same come Wednesday morning.  Peter Pan AU. Nine, Rose, Ten/Rose


This was written for a challenge at then_theres_us on livejournal, where my prompt was Peter Pan. It's AU, if you can't tell. :)

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Ten year old Rose Tyler closes her eyes on Tuesday night to a world which will never look the same come Wednesday morning.

She is awakened by the sound of her window being shoved open, then the muted thud of a body hitting the ground. She sits straight up in her bed, back as tight as a board, and watches in fear as a grown man comes to stand next to her. He is holding an odd blue pen and looking around the room quickly. The problem, from his muttering, seems to be his own shadow.

"Pardon?" Rose asks, swallowing around a lump of fear in her throat. She should be screaming, and the dog should be barking, but something is holding these things back. The man's hand is out, not to strike but as if he is trying to reassure her.

"Be very still," he says, and his eyes are very blue and very serious. "Count the shadows."

She only sees the one and tells him so, but he waves the blue pen over her anyways. The beeping scares her, but she doesn't let him see. When he's finished with her he smiles, a grin so wide she feels her fear fading away in degrees.

"All clear," he says, before turning to bleep the floor. He's bleeping the space under her bed when it strikes her.

"Are you a doctor?" she asks. Most of her parents' friends are doctors. Sometimes there are parties when dozens of doctors come over and they all wear the most horrible bowties. Also no one dances, which is terribly boring.

"I am," he replies, and though he's inspected every square inch of her bedroom, he seems to have found nothing. He stands, a preoccupied look on his face.

"What's your name?" he asks, and she doesn't hesitate, which surprises her.

"Rose Tyler."

He grins again, waves his funny little wand.

"Nice to meet you Rose Tyler," he says, and ducks down to climb out of her window. She races out of bed, arms and legs tangling in covers. She makes it to the window right as he's about to drop out of it.

"You'll fall!" she says, but he just smiles again. It's almost the last thing she can see of him. His edges are blurry; it's like he is bleeding away into the night.

"Not me," he says. There's something blue on the ground below him. She can barely make out the shape of it in the dark. He grins again, reaches out, touches her hand. "I can fly!"

And with a swift drop he is gone. Afterwards there is only the creak of a door and an unfamiliar whirring noise, then silence. She walks back to her bed, dazed, and watches the sun come up from her bed.

Tuesday night has become Wednesday morning. Nothing now can ever be the same.

He comes back ten years later, though she doesn't know it at first. He's completely different. Then again, so is she.

"Hi," he says, like it's the most natural thing in the world to climb in through a young woman's room while she's sleeping. She's got her blanket tight to her chin but she's sure her hair is disheveled. Her body is trembling under the covers. "My name is the Doctor. I'm looking for Rose Tyler." He stops, seems to realize he may have intruded, grins sheepishly. "But you're not her, are you? It may have been a while. I had a bit of an accident. Well... I say accident." He gestures to himself, touches his chest as if he's still getting used to what's there. "I mean regeneration, of course."

She can only gape.

"You say you're the Doctor?" she sits up a bit straighter, tries to examine every part of him for something familiar, frowns. "Doctor who?"

"Does Rose still live here?" he asks instead, and he is looking at her expectantly and there is a look in his eyes that is so familiar... But how can that be? The eyes are completely different, as is everything else about him. There is no way this is the same man... no possible way this is _her_ doctor.

"Are you really him?" she asks, but she's still not sure if she believes what she's thinking out loud. She can't help herself though. She's excited about the idea. "Are you the man that climbed through my window before?"

"Rose," he says, and he's looking at her appreciatively, like he should have known. He crosses her room in three swift steps, crouches down, takes her hand through the covers and smiles at her. It is him, somehow it is she just knows it, but that's impossible. Amazingly, she returns the smile.

"How do you feel about an adventure?" he asks, and it's like he knows she's been waiting her whole life to hear those words.

He maps out their destination from her bedroom window, long fingers pointing the way as she watches, still wearing her blue nightgown with the ribbons. There is something sweet and rather romantic about the way he talks of the sky, as if he knows it intimately, and when he tells her where they're going, second star to the right and straight on till morning, she closes her eyes and imagines it all being real.

"This has to be a dream," she says, trying to convince herself, but she takes his hand anyways.

He teaches her to fly, and they visit places she's only dreamed of: beautiful beaches and tall mountains covered in layers of snow and ice. They park on top of Big Ben and have lunch under the stars and he promises to show her all of them in between bites of jam. She holds his hand when she watches the last sunrise on Earth, comforting him even though he's already seen this bit before. "Why don't you grow old?" she asks him later, instead of asking what she really wants to: what are you really and how long can you stay?

"Run with me and you won't grow older either," he says.

It's the first and only lie he ever tells her.


End file.
